


Dragon Anatomy 101 (I'm Going To Make This Weird)

by Sparrow (hersilentlanguage)



Series: Four Hearts as One(shots) [1]
Category: Descendants (Disney Movies), The Isle of the Lost Series - Melissa de la Cruz
Genre: Auradon Prep (Disney), Carlos is a little shit, Crack Treated Seriously, Evie is just trying to study, F/F, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Jay had an honest question, M/M, Mal is so done with her boys, Multi, Oneshot, Rotten OT4, TW: light swearing, United States of Auradon (Disney), dorm room study sesh, dragon anatomy 101, very minor angst (blink and you miss it), where do dragon hybrids come from? find out today
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:21:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23851480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hersilentlanguage/pseuds/Sparrow
Summary: Jay glanced down at his textbook. “It’s not weird,” he said, after a moment’s hesitation, “if youwere… you know.” He shrugged.“But were you?” asked Carlos, leaning over from the other bed, clearly unabashed to admit he’d been eavesdropping—again.Feeling Evie tug meaningfully at his sleeve, Carlos cast a sheepish look back at her, then mumbled, “It’s for science…”Mal actually laughed in spite of herself—maybe just for how Evie’s face scrunched up in such aparticularway when she was about to remind Carlos, for perhaps the hundredth time, that“it’s for science”wasn’t an all-access pass for his curiosity.
Relationships: Evie & Evil Queen (mentioned), Evie/Carlos de Vil, Evie/Jay/Mal/Carlos de Vil, Evie/Mal (Disney), Jay/Carlos de Vil, Jay/Mal (Disney), Mal & Maleficent (mentioned)
Series: Four Hearts as One(shots) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1929922
Comments: 28
Kudos: 224





	Dragon Anatomy 101 (I'm Going To Make This Weird)

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, hello! I'm back with a fluffy, mildly crack-ish Rotten OT4 oneshot. I started this as a warm-up drabble, but it hit 2K and I'm not complaining. ~~I had hella writer's block for a while there. Starting to BREAK FREE.~~ But yeah, anyway, please enjoy this little something while I work on my larger projects! Coming up next: hopefully some of that Snake!Jay AU? <3

The boys’ dorm room was aglow with afternoon sunlight. Jay had settled down to study where the sun pooled brightest—a section of carpet with a notable fade in coloration. He’d shifted from lying on his belly to lying on his back, holding his _Dragon Anatomy 101_ textbook upside-down above him.

“Hey, Mal?” he asked, earning a quiet hum in answer. Mal was sitting on his bed with her sketchbook in her lap, and she didn’t so much as glance up from it until Jay continued: “Can I ask you something kinda personal?”

“Uh... sure, I guess?” Mal raised an eyebrow.

Jay hesitated, then began to sit up. “I was just wondering…”

_“About?”_ Mal prompted, now focusing her full attention on Jay for the way he seemed unable to meet her eyes, and maybe _especially_ for the way he had not-so-discreetly placed his textbook facedown, like he was embarrassed to let her see something. She rolled her eyes at the thought of whatever _that_ might be—

(Dragon Anatomy 101, _indeed.)_

“About, uh…” Jay took a breath, then mumbled out such a mess of words that Mal couldn’t _begin_ to pull them apart from each other. She leaned forward, still more suspicious. “What was that?”

There came a snort of laughter from the other bed, where Carlos and Evie were huddled together with their chemistry textbooks.

“Cee, _focus,”_ said Evie, elbowing Carlos in the ribs for what must have been at least the third time, judging by her expression. His cheeks were red with barely suppressed laughter, and the way Mal was looking at him now was close to breaking him entirely—

“S-sorry,” Carlos choked out, “but h-he _seriously_... just asked—”

“—if all dragons come from Camelot,” Jay said quickly, struggling to his feet with a nervous smile. “Do… do they?”

Mal’s stare was incredulous. “How is that a ‘personal question?’”

“Because, uh—” Jay scratched at the back of his neck, carrying the air of someone who hadn’t prepared a speech. “Because you’re… _personally…_ a dragon,” he said lamely. “A dragon… _person.”_

“Right…” said Mal, her eyes wandering back to a snickering Carlos. She raised an eyebrow at him. “Something funny?”

Carlos opened his mouth to reply, faltering when he saw the way Jay shifted to regard him sidelong, a hint of warning on his face that plainly translated: _Choose your next words carefully, De Vil._

There was a beat of silence, and then, Carlos simply gestured to his chemistry textbook, replying, “Nah, nothing, it’s just—” His lips twitched into a smirk, seeing Jay’s shoulders start to relax. “—Jay’s been wondering if your mom lays eggs, I guess.”

He said it so matter-of-factly, so deviously _composed,_ that he had a couple seconds to toss his textbook, and try to scramble away before Jay was tackling him into the bed with a war cry of, “You little shit!”

Evie rolled her eyes as she slipped neatly off the bed to avoid the tousle, her textbook still open to the relevant chapter. She’d given up on wrangling Carlos’ far-wandering attention, but that didn’t mean _she_ was going to risk missing even a single bonus question on their exam tomorrow. _This was too important._

Frankly, it was a matter of personal pride (and vengeance) for Evie to include in the envelope that contained her bi-annual “spite selfie,” addressed to her mother, yet _another_ copy of her flawless GPA.

_That’s my girl,_ Mal thought distractedly, smiling to herself as she gazed across the distance to Evie, whose brow was wrinkled in concentration. The Evil Queen may have hated to see her like that, with her nose in a book, but in Mal’s opinion? Evie never looked more beautiful (and that was saying something).

Mal tore her eyes away only to regard the two squabbling turkeys that were ruining her moment. “Idiots,” she muttered, maybe a little fondly; after all, it wasn’t like the image of her mother—the once-great mistress of evil—nesting like a broody _chicken_ wasn’t kind of funny, even after everything.

But the thought that Mal _herself_ had been hatched like a yolk onto the cold stone floor of Bargain Castle? She shook her head in distaste for the very concept. It was too ridiculous for _that_ to be her origin story. What, did Jay think _just because_ he’d seen her through a few MINOR shifting “incidents” growing up that it meant—

_No, obviously not. Ridiculous. Not how it happened. Bye!_

Mal chewed her lip, noticing the _Dragon Anatomy 101_ textbook left unguarded on the floor. _Was there something in there she didn’t know about herself?_ Her mother never _had_ said much about her bloodline—except to praise _herself_ for existing as the preeminent example of its power.

_(“It’s not the blood alone, Mal. It’s who you are,”_ her mother used to say, _“and if you’re lucky, one day, you will be exactly like me.”)_

_Evil, I hope not,_ Mal thought wryly, the memory of her mother as a helpless lizard in a glass cage flashing quickly through her mind.

She sighed as she reached down to pick up Jay’s textbook, noting that he had his back to her. He was, from the look of it, intent on tickling Carlos’ without mercy, though Evie’s shushing had left him to do it one-handed. His other hand was clamped over Carlos’ mouth, effectively muffling the younger teen’s pleas and protests.

Mal rolled her eyes at their antics, then sat back down on the edge of Jay’s bed, telling herself that she was _really_ only curious to judge whatever Jay had been reading about her heritage to have left him so, dare she say... _flustered?_

(She did dare, yes—if only because it’d annoy him.)

“Let’s see,” she murmured, flipping a page or two back to the start of the chapter. “Hmm, Chapter 13: Introduction to—oh, _of course_ —Dragon Reproduction and Development.” Mal scoffed, shooting Jay’s back an unimpressed look. “What are you, like twelve?”

Jay didn’t react as though he’d heard her, so Mal grabbed her pencil and aimed it like a dart, hitting him square in the back with its sharp end. “Pay attention when I’m insulting you,” she griped.

He twisted around with some half-formed comeback on his lips, but then, in the same moment he saw the textbook open in her lap, his expression shifted to one of surprise and—pain?

“Oh, for Lucifer’s sake,” Mal muttered, sharing a look with Evie.

(Jay’s tickling had stopped just long enough for Carlos to take full advantage of Mal distracting him, so he’d bitten Jay— _hard._ )

“DUDE!” Jay cried, snatching his hand away from Carlos’ mouth with a disgruntled glance at his palm, glistening wet and freshly indented with a red-budding ring of teethmarks.

_“Dude,”_ Carlos mocked as he wiped the spit from his mouth.

Jay wrinkled his nose, and shoved his hand into Carlos’ face for inspection. He waved it around obnoxiously, while grumbling, “You better not have just given me rabies, _dude.”_

“Hmph.” Carlos swatted him away with a frown so exaggerated, it seemed to occupy every muscle in his face. “If I have rabies, it’s ‘cause you gave it to me, _dude.”_

He tilted his head to display the fading hickey on his neck, and Jay couldn’t help but laugh as he remembered how flustered Carlos had been over it earlier that week.

(Something about an awkward encounter with a teacher who insisted it wasn’t “polite” to wear a scarf indoors.)

“Well, _dude_ —” Jay broke off into a yelp when a pillow smacked into him from behind. At the same time Evie, having set her textbook neatly aside, grabbed another pillow and leapt back onto the bed. “E!” was all Carlos managed to squeak out before he was being smothered by his giggling betrayer.

Mal and Evie were beside themselves with laughter by the time they let up their assault. They grinned widely at each other, their eyes bright and their cheeks vibrant as roses.

Jay huffed as he ran a hand through his mess of a hair, feeling it crackle with static electricity. “What was _that_ for?” he grumbled.

“Yeah,” said Carlos, still flat on his back, and pouting up at Evie. She made no effort to respond—only smiled and began to fuss with his curls while he (badly) pretended to mind it.

“Maybe that’s just what you get,” Mal replied with a smirk.

“But I didn’t do anything,” Carlos mumbled, more to himself than anyone else. Jay heard him, and scoffed, “You _bit_ me…”

“In _self-defence.”_

“Boys,” warned Evie, though not without a smile. _“Some of us_ have exams in the morning. Should we get back to studying?”

“You heard the lady,” Mal added, winking at Evie as they both settled back into their original spots: Mal, propped up against Jay’s headboard, and Evie tucked warmly into Carlos’ side—once she’d nudged him into sitting up straight again, anyway.

Meanwhile, Jay shuffled over to retrieve his _Dragon Anatomy_ textbook from where Mal had left it abandoned on his bed.

He didn’t realize her surreptitious watch on him until he was about to reach for the textbook, only for Mal’s leg to stretch out like a viper’s neck, her foot striking hard against the cover.

Jay made a face at her. _“C’mon,_ M, I need to study…”

“You gotta pay for the toll first.”

“What toll?”

“The one you take on my sanity,” Mal replied, smirking at him. “So, cash or credit?” She held a hand out, palm up.

Jay cocked his hip, and returned the smirk. “Nah, pretty sure we’re even on _that_ front, Eggo.” He deftly yanked the textbook out from under her foot as she gaped like a fish—

“Jay, you son of a fuck… what did you just call me?”

He chuckled. “Mm, I don’t know—Waffle? I’m kinda hungry.”

Mal narrowed her eyes. “You’re a jerk, you know that?” She retrieved a spare pencil from the spiral ring of her sketchbook, and returned to work on the drawing she’d started earlier.

When the bed dipped a few seconds later, Mal looked up to see that Jay was sitting by her feet, his gaze trained on her face.

“What?” she snapped, feeling restless under his study.

Jay glanced down at his textbook. “It’s not weird,” he said, after a moment’s hesitation, “if you _were…_ you know.” He shrugged.

“But were you?” asked Carlos, leaning over from the other bed, clearly unabashed to admit he’d been eavesdropping—again.

Feeling Evie tug meaningfully at his sleeve, Carlos cast a sheepish look back at her, then mumbled, “It’s for science…”

Mal actually laughed in spite of herself—maybe just for how Evie’s face scrunched up in such a _particular_ way when she was about to remind Carlos, for perhaps the hundredth time, that _“it’s for science”_ wasn’t an all-access pass for his curiosity.

“Alright, fine, if you fuckers are _that_ obsessed with figuring out how _this_ happened—” Mal set her sketchbook down and gestured airily to herself. “—I guess, who can blame you?”

Jay snorted. “I don’t know about _obsessed…”_

“Shut up, and give me the body manual.”

“Sorry—the _body manual?”_ Jay choked on a laugh.

Snapping her fingers, Mal stared him down. “Gimme,” she ordered, pretending not to hear Evie and Carlos giggling.

Jay passed her the textbook without another word.

“Okay, everyone shut up for a second. I’m reading.”

(Exactly no one listened, but Mal chose not to dwell.)

She split the textbook open, flipped through the pages to find the chapter from earlier, skimmed its various headers and illustrations with intense focus, then went to the table of contents, muttering the chapter titles under her breath until she fell on the keyword she was looking for: _hybrid._

More specifically, _Chapter 21: Interspecies Hybridization._

Mal found the relevant pages and began to read through the introduction, trailing her finger over the paragraphs. “Blah, blah, blah,” she mumbled. “Get to the… point…”

“Did you find something?”

“SHH!” Mal didn’t know who’d spoken and she didn’t care. She held one finger up to gesture that she needed a minute, except it wasn’t nearly that long before she clapped the textbook shut so suddenly that Carlos jumped.

“Jay,” Mal said quietly, raising her head to stare straight past him at the wall. He raised an eyebrow, but leaned in closer, supporting himself on one arm. “Uh, yeah, M?” he asked.

“Take this—” Mal handed the textbook back. “—and burn it.”

Jay smirked. “Sure, whatever you say, Eggo.”

“CALL ME THAT ONE MORE TIME.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Kudos and comments are always appreciated! I'd love to hear your thoughts, but no pressure. <3
> 
> P.S. Feel free to drop in and say hello if you're on Tumblr: @hersilentlanguage :)


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